Argentinian tenor Santiago Ballerini is recognized as one of the leading tenors in the Bel Canto repertoire, having appeared at all of the major opera houses in South and North America. In the current season, he will be covering the roles of Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni and Count Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. He will also return to the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires as Il Tenor Italiano in Der Rosenkavalier and sing Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola at the Teatro Argentino. In July of 2017, Ballerini will return to the Caramoor Festival in New York to sing Gualtiero in Bellini’s Il pirata.

This past season, Ballerini made his acclaimed United States debut at the Caramoor Festival as Fernand in La Favorite and sang the role of Tybalt in The Atlanta Opera’s production of Romeo et Juliette. After singing the role of Conte di Libenskof in Il Viaggio a Reims at the Teatro Bellas Artes in Mexico City, the tenor returned to the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires to sing Jünge Graf in Zimmerman’s Die Soldaten.

Highlights from previous seasons include Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore at the Teatro Solis in Montevideo alongside baritone Erwin Schrott, and performances at the Teatro Colon as the title role in Luigi Nono’s Prometeo and Arbace in Mozart’s Idomeneo. Ballerini also sang Lindoro in L’italiana in Algeri at the Teatro Argentino; Belmonte in Die entführung aus dem Serail, Lord Perci in Anna Bolena, Gennaro in Lucrezia Borgia, Ferrando in Cosi fan tutte, Ernesto in Don Pasquale, Alfred in Die Fledermaus and Tebaldo in I Capuleti e I Montecchi at the Teatro Avenida; Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Romeo and Tybalt in Romeo et Juliette and Jaquino in Fidelio at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Tamino in DieZauberflöte at the Teatro Libertador in Cordoba; and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at the Colsubsidio Theatre’s re-opening in Bogota, Colombia.

In January of 2016, Ballerini was awarded the Grand Prize at the Laguna Magica International Vocal Competition in Chile, receiving invitations to sing Cassio in Otello with the Teatro Argentino and to sing with the Tenerife Opera. He was a semifinalist in the Fancisco Vinas Competition at the Gran Teatre del Liceu and the Argentine Finalist at the Neue Stimmen Competition in Dresden, Germany. He also won First Prize at the Festivals Musicales Competition, American Society Competition and San Juan Opera Competition. In 2014, Ballerini was named Argentina’s “Upcoming Opera Singer” by the Congress of Argentina and the Argentine Association of Critics. He was also a featured soloist for the “50th MET Anniversary Gala”, receiving a scholarship to study with Sherrill Milnes. Before starting his professional singing career, Ballerini was a pianist for nine years and studied Music Therapy at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, specializing in addiction treatment.

Voice Types

Facebook

To all you who have written us with such kindness and care upon learning about Bruce Zemsky's passing, please accept our heart felt appreciation and thanks. We would have wished to have first announced his death on this page. But today's world of social media has made it very difficult to maintain any necessary discretionary silence and hence many of you reached out to us before we could extend ourselves to you. Most of you who have written knew Bruce, but some of you did not. So here tonight, for his friends, artists, as well as those of you who only knew him peripherally, we celebrate his life by telling you more about him.

Bruce was born on May 12, 1955 in Brooklyn and after some time the family moved to the Bronx. He fell in love with the world of musical comedy at a young age, studied piano and then was admitted to the prestigious High School of Music and Arts (now known as LaGuardia High School of Music & Art). Why he was assigned there to play the trombone remained a mystery to him and to us but also something to remember with laughter. Bruce then went to Queens College where he studied Romance Languages; ultimately he commanded five of them and was always interested to add more language skills. In the last years, he had taken up Russian. By high school and continuing into college while still loving the musical theatre world, his real passion had become opera. Once starting to attend performances at the New York City York City Opera and Metropolitan Opera, there was no turning back. As a student standee, he became friendly with many leading artists of that time - Richard Tucker, Gilda Cruz Romo, Elena Mauti Nunziata, Montserrat Caballe and many others. The great Catalan tenor Jose Carreras gave many of his first memorable performances here at the NYCO; the friendship which ensued brought Bruce to the attention of Katia Ricciarelli who was a very special friend of Mr. Carreras both on stage and off. Bruce's first actual experience working in the opera world was as Ms. Ricciarell's secretary. Shortly thereafter in 1977 he was invited by Joel Bloch, then head of the vocal division of Shaw Concerts, to join him in the management of their singers. Some of his relationships go as far back as that time - Judith Forst, who has always been one of our most beloved and respected artists was represented by Bruce already in the first years of his career. I am especially proud to say that this relationship has continued through the decades until the present day. I was particularly happy today to hear from another lady very cherished by Bruce and then by me - Susanne Marsee. The great and unforgotten Beverly Sills always said of her, "Nobody can touch her" and those of you who may have been fortunate to have heard Susanne as Sara in Roberto Devereux and as Giovanna Seymour in Anna Bolena and in many other roles will know how true that was.

I met Bruce on December 31, 1979 at a New Years Party. At that time, I had already graduated from Manhattan School of Music and was continuing my vocal studies while working for the famous Mr Tape who was internationally known as a leading purveyor of recordings of live operatic performances. This was one of the first things which Bruce and I learned we had in common. He had also worked in the "pirate field" for Mr Tape's great competitor, Ed Rosen. From recording cassette and reel-to-reel tapes at double speed, we both were able to sing the beginning of so many operas at the same rapid tempo. While I had never met Bruce before, I did recognize him from the same standing room or backstage lines which I had been on for years. I had developed my passion for opera many years before. So while we were not introduced at that time, it did turn out that we had attended scores of the same performances.

Many months after this New Year's Eve meeting, Bruce called me once he had taken over the vocal department of Shaw Concerts, which was a very respected boutique agency boasting artists on the roster which included Dame Janet Baker, Jessye Norman, Vladimir Horowitz, Hermann Prey and many others. He asked me to join him there. I had not looked for this professional turn. As it had simply come to me, I took this to mean I was meant to accept and so we then started professional collaboration there in 1980. I found the transfer to artists' manager a particularly easy passage because, after all, I was just continuing to talk about what had always been my principal interest; the difference only being that now it was also my career. Our relationship developed from that point and we rapidly became as close as brothers. Indeed, I always viewed Bruce as a brother as he did of me. He was a part of my family; he was present at my wedding to Catherine in 1982, and he was with us all the time. He was the beloved uncle of my daughters and a deeply close brother-in-law to Catherine. Professionally we were especially fortunate in that we both appreciated most of all those singers who were daring, individual, entirely unique and then often controversial. This has never changed.

Of course, no one who was active in the classical music world of that time was not aware and acquainted with the great American impresario Matthew Epstein and it was through his introduction that we were invited to join the roster of Columbia Artists in 1984. Neither Bruce nor I were ever really the "corporate" type but in most of the years there, we were able to proceed with our own entirely different and individual approach. We never divided our roster of artists between us - neither at Shaw nor at CAMI or later. While time constraints and perhaps specific language skills might have meant that one of us would be perhaps somewhat more involved with some artists than the other, we both were always deeply involved in the careers of all the artists. it would be impossible to name all the great artists whom we worked with during the many years at CAMI, but they were among the elite of the operatic world. When, in 2004, it became increasingly clear that if were to continue to represent our artists with integrity, that we had to depart from CAMI, we did so on February 8, 2005 which was the first day of a new company: Zemsky Green Artists. The continued loyalty of all the artists who all followed us, gave us further courage in this new endeavor which was, at that point in our lives and careers, very challenging. And in the ensuing years, we continued our search to find and develop those who we felt were among the most exciting new talents, a commitment that persists to this day.

In all these years - from our first steps together right until the present, Bruce and I worked side by side in the greatest of harmony. As we all know, our’s is not a very simple business and here Bruce's amazing sense of humor was a key ingredient to maintain our perspective and spirits - in the best of times and in the unavoidable more difficult moments. My wife Catherine said that no one in the world could ever make me laugh as Bruce could and this was true every day throughout all the years. We spent every day together in the office, or when traveling on the phone, and yet at the end of each day we never ran out of ideas to explore together, things to say to each other. We were both very aware that having found our way to each other that we had been blessed with the kind of professional partnership, allied also to such a close personal relationship, which is always wished for, but very rarely found. I had enormous respect for Bruce, as everything he had become he had caved out of himself on his own and through his own initiative. I had the benefit of a family which included a long line of classical musicians; my parents' international travels and interests which we were allowed to share, opened the world to us. These were gifts born from a privilege which Bruce had not been brought up with. And yet on his own he had made this same world and culture his own. Bruce had another more hidden talent; all his life he had been a very gifted song writer. The demands posed by our professional work had made it difficult to dedicate time to this creative side of his being. But in the last two years of his life, not only did he experience a tremendous renewal of inspiration, he was also able to see his songs sung and appreciated in public. Paulo Szot was heard in several of his compositions in performance in New York City and here I also want to salute our very close friend, the renowned composer, conductor, and pianist Glen Roven. Glen was of enormous help to Bruce as he returned to this, one his first loves.

Bruce fell ill exactly a year ago with a terribly serious and pernicious disease called MDS. While the tremendous and constant developments in medicine have made it possible to overcome or at least live with conditions which only a few decades ago were considered hopelessly incurable, MDS research is still fighting its way forward. There have been some fortunate individuals who have been able to emerge from the trap of this disease, but Bruce was sadly not one of the lucky ones. All through these last 12 months he handled this terribly difficult situation with tremendous courage and perhaps even more astoundingly, a deep calm. I told him this every day. He was supported in this by all those around him, his friends both here and abroad, and my family. A special thanks is here needed for my wonderful colleagues in our office - Erik Malmquist, Penelope Bussolino, Elizabeth Wilfong and Adam Holtzberg. Their dedication and support in this difficult period has been simply invaluable. Bruce was surrounded by love. Despite the efforts of an excellent medical team, despite our own attempts to bring Bruce through the illness, despite his own strength in this battle, the illness did take him from us. He had celebrated his 62nd Birthday on May 12. He was forced to leave us far too young. It is a great loss for everyone and while we must acknowledge and mourn this loss, I want to focus more on the joy and light of his life, a light he shared with all both professionally and personally. I know he will never be forgotten and that is because who he was, what he represented remains with us now and in all the tomorrows to come. I want to close this message by thanking all of you once more and close this message with one of Bruce’s most heartfelt compositions by Paulo Szot. Alan Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFmblcBBdGQ ... See more